cj#684> “China vs. Globalization” 2/3

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Begin part 2 of 3 - "China vs. Globalization"
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Missions for the arsenal: (2) the China question
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In considering why tactical nukes would be deemed necessary by US
military planners (not in Libya, but in the long run) - and in
considering why the US seeks to advance further its hi-tech
capability when it is already so far ahead of the pack - one is led
inevitably to look at the China question.
China is the only remaining significant wild card in the
globalization game. There are small countries which are anti-
globalist, notably Cuba, but their size precludes them from
challenging the steamroller in any serious way. Medium sized
"renegades" like Libya can cause a bit more trouble, but Iraq stands
as an example of how readily they can be humbled if they get too far
out of line. But China - if it does not conform to the demands of the
new globalist regime - could be a significant thorn in the side of
that regime.
What does globalism demand of China? Economically - to abandon
socialism (gradually) and to embrace free-trade (right away);
politically - to abandon hopes of creating a Chinese-dominated Asian
sphere of influence; human rights and democracy are not a
requirement, as "most favored nation" status testifies, rhetoric on
the topic notwithstanding.
I assume the economic requirement, as stated above, is obvious
to everyone - that's simply the public agenda of economic
globalism.
The political requirement relates to the role of the
multilateral police force, whose task it is to maintain a world
order harmonious with globalist investment needs. A regionally
hegemonous China would be perceived as threatening to a NATO-
centric world order, just as Japan's Co-Prosperity Sphere was
considered threatening to US and European national interests at
the time. The West has traditionally been comfortable when
powers balanced one another in Asia, and this attitude has had
no reason to change.
China seems to be doing well in reaching an accommodation with
globalism's economic demands, but China's nationalist aspirations
may turn out to be deep-seated and stubborn.
There are a pair of articles in Foreign Affairs (March/April 1997) - a
Council-on-Foreign-Relations journal highly revealing of the
globalist agenda - called The China Threat - A Debate. In the first
article - The Coming Conflict with America - Richard Bernstein and Ross
H. Munro present the case that armed conflict between the US and
China may be inevitable.
They tell us: "China's sheer size and inherent strength, its
conception of itself as a center of global civilization, and its
eagerness to redeem centuries of humiliating weakness are propelling
it toward Asian hegemony." And they pass on an ominous sentiment
attributed to General Mi Zhenyu, vice-commandant of the Academy of
Military Sciences in Beijing: "For a relatively long time it will be
absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance.
We must conceal our abilities and bide our time" - giving fair warning
to be wary of what may appear to be softening in Chinese behavior.
What makes these observations especially dire is the article's
evidently authoritative description of Uncle Sam's attitude on the
matter:
"China's goal of achieving paramount status in Asia conflicts
with an established American objective: preventing any single
country from gaining an overwhelming power in Asia. The United
States, after all, has been in major wars in Asia three times
in the past half-century, always to prevent a single power from
gaining ascendency."
The implication is clear that the United States can be expected to
act decisively to alter what seems to be China's expansionist path,
even by warfare if that becomes necessary. This traditional
American attitude toward Asian balance-of-power is consistent with
globalization's need for an orderly world system, and with Europe's
own military traditions. In what follows, the focus is on the US
vs. China - but the US role should be understood in the context of the
US as the heavy artillery of the multilateral globalist police
force.
The article tells us that China is spending astronomical sums on
military modernization - aimed at the ability to knock out US Carrier
Task Forces, as well as dominating Asia. We are told that China's
leaders "cannot be counted on to relinquish their monopolistic hold
on power" and that "The most likely form for China to assume is a
kind of corporatist, militarized, nationalist state, one with some
similarity to the fascist states of Mussolini or Francisco Franco."
We are shown a map with seven "flash points," and various plausible
scenarios are explored, each of which could easily lead to armed
conflicts. It is explained that Japan must be our special partner
in counter-balancing Chinese hegemony.
Robert S. Ross, in Beijing as a Conservative Power, takes up the
debating position that "engagement" is the proper approach to China -
"Treat China as an enemy and it will be one." Details are revealed
regarding air and sea power, showing that China cannot be any kind
of real threat for a long time to come. That provides time to build
relationships and seek to integrate China, adequately if not
ideally, into an acceptable scheme of things.
Recent history is visited, and we learn that China has been acting
quite to US benefit in geopolitical terms. It balanced the Soviet
Union; it stabilized Southeast Asia when Uncle Sam was forced out of
Vietnam. We are urged to "invite China to participate in
international rule-making," and to "reinforce China's interest in
regional stability and strengthen its commitment to global
stability. Engagement, not isolation, is the appropriate policy."
Both articles take it as a given that the US has the "strategic
interest" - translation: the right - to insure that a "favorable"
balance of power is maintained in Asia: it is categorically
unacceptable that China achieve outright hegemony and freedom-of-
action in Asia. The debate is about means, not ends.
I must say that the first article is more convincing - the fundamental
case for eventual confrontation seems more solid than the likelihood
of namby-pamby coaxing bringing about a paradigm shift in China's
thousands-year-old sense of national greatness and sovereign pride.
Given the degree of societal dedication to be expected, and the
prowess of China's scientific and engineering communities, one might
anticipate (in this age where offense dominates defense) that China
may be able to achieve some technological leap-frog in the local
military balance of power - something as surprising as a Sputnik that
neutralizes, at least temporarily many of the American advantages.
For strategic military planners on both sides, one must assume that
the race has been joined. Can China create a window of opportunity -
based on focused achievement of regional military parity - during
which time it could establish a firm hold on its own sphere of
influence? Could it hold this parity long enough for the new status
quo to become accepted by the international community, as has, it
seems, the occupation of Tibet?
The interwar (pre-World-War-II) parallel
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The China scenario - it must be observed - is strikingly similar to the
interwar scenario - when there were similar debates regarding
engagement vs. confrontation re/ Japan and Germany. China evidently
has the same brand of soul-deep national ambition shared then by
Japan and Germany, and a similar potential to express it effectively
in action. Japan and Germany could only be tamed - the historic
lesson seems to clearly say - by complete destruction and
unconditional surrender, followed by complete rebuilding under US
tutelage. These are precedents that cannot be far from the minds of
our Foreign Affairs authors, although their pens would be unlikely
to develop such comparisons until closer to the climax.
The parallels with the interwar period are only accentuated by what
we learn in China preys on American minds - The US this week,
Guardian Weekly (6 April 1997). Martin Walker describes the on-the-
ground implementation of the engagement agenda. We are told of the
Beijing-based US Business Council, "a formidable group of US
executives whose corporate lobbies back in Washington have worked
hard to ensure that no US politician dare confront the engagement-
trade-investment model." We are also reminded of "fat Chinese
consultancy fees earned by those former secretaries of state, Dr.
Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig." Clearly Foreign
Affairs (Robert Ross) was providing philosophical background for
what turns out to be an already operational corporatist agenda - an
investment-intensive era parallel to that of the interwar years.
Interestingly, Mr. Walker casts moral derision on this money-
grabbing behavior: "There ought to be scandal in the way US
corporations scurry to serve Beijing's interests." He reports with
explicit admiration some words of Newt Gingrich, delivered recently
at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing:
"Americans cannot remain silent about the basic lack of
freedom - speech, religion, assembly, the press - in China. In the
most basic sense, we are simply asking the Chinese government
to enforce its own constitution."
Perhaps one can presume Gingrich is replaying the crowd-pleasing
Churchill role: espouse the high moral ground, encourage a simmering
pool of popular suspicion toward the future enemy, and wait in the
wings for the moment of fame when the bugle finally sounds. Like
Churchill, he would be seen as morally untainted (as regards what in
the endgame is known as appeasement), although I imagine his
constituency gets its share of Chinese opportunities in the interim.
The interwar parallels are again underscored.
The article next reveals an interesting clue as to how the
increasingly confrontational climate is to be spun in mass media
doublespeak:
"The Clash of Civilisations, the book by Harvard professor Sam
Huntington, may not have hit the bestseller lists, but its dire
warning of a 21st century rivalry between the liberal white folk
and the Yellow Peril - sorry, the Confucian cultures - is
underpinning the formation of a new political environment.
"To adapt one of Mao's subtler metaphors, Huntington's Kultur-
kampf is becoming, with stunning speed, the conceptual sea in
which Washington's policy-making fish now swim."
Mr. Walker lays out for us - and this seems to be the official mass-
media party-line - the proposition that the only reason for the US to
be concerned about China is the question of human rights, and that
the only other reason conflict might develop is due to some mythical
notion of inevitable cultural warfare. Nowhere in this party-line
is mentioned the fact, so obvious to not-so-mass-media Foreign
Affairs, that Western balance-of-power interests (not human rights,
culture, or ideology) will be the primary counter-consideration to
investment opportunities, vis a vis China policy.
Teddy Roosevelt said "Walk softly, and carry a big stick." The more
profitable version of this admonition, as carried out in the
interwar years, in Iraq, and apparently again with China, is:
"Profit through engagement, then deliver a just-in-time death blow."
The popular-consensus/media-propaganda version of history looks
nothing like what we've been talking about. According to the
consensus myth, WW II was caused by a pair of maniacal monsters -
Fanatic-Yellow-Peril and Racist-Nazi-Demon - who were driven by
disturbed psyches (personal and collective) more than normal
national ambitions, and whom the other nations of the world were
compelled to subdue - solely in the interests of freedom, democracy,
and human rights. People don't want to fight to obtain balance-of-
power adjustments, but they'll fight valiantly if they can be sold a
cover story that taps into appropriate emotional-response triggers.
An offensive war by a modern democratic society must always be
represented to the domestic population as being defensive, in
pursuit of lofty goals, and necessitated by a maniacal aggressive
enemy, or at least that's been the pattern to date.
As previously with Nazi-Demon and Yellow-Peril, a new mythology is
being prepared for us to justify the final round of major
geopolitical adjustments. Sam Huntington, via his KulturKampf
Clash of Civilisations, is the canonical proponent of this new
mythology. As with the previous mythology, there is ample factual
basis for its thesis - but its overall effect is to distract from the
larger operative forces. Yes there are real cultural differences
between China and an idealized West, but the cultural differences
could be accommodated - what may not be so easily accommodated is
China's culture-independent nationalist aspirations. Balance-of-
power realpolitik is not dead - not yet.
Kultur-Kampf is the mythology to be foisted on the public to cover
the real motives behind the anticipated violent adjustment of great-
power relationships - ie. the coercion of a destroyed and re-
engineered China into the global system on globalist terms, by
replay of the Japan-Germany unconditional-surrender scenario.
The propagation of a Kultur-Kampf Big Lie - especially with China
being likened to the already demonized Arab states - provides a sound
basis for evoking the emotional climate appropriate for war
popularization. With the bass-drum of Kultur-Kampf beating a steady
rhythm in the popular media, the pace can be jazzed up with juicy
Chinese atrocity stories whenever necessary, and the warpath-kettle
can be kept just below boil. This is astute war-preparedness, as
regards strategic propaganda.
What, in fact, America (leading proponent of globalization) seems to
be doing with China is to consciously replay the interwar scenario:
profit maximally from trade and investments in China, encourage US
public opinion to maintain a simmering hostility toward what may
become a future enemy, tacitly facilitate China's military
development, closely monitor developments - and most important - be sure
that the US, together with its projected allies, maintains strategic
dominance militarily. In this last regard, the US may have skirted
danger in WW II more closely than it will need to this time around.
This time around the US is on a continual wartime footing, with
fleets sufficient for simultaneous conflicts, nuclear submarines,
satellite superiority, strategic missiles, and the new gadgets the
Economist tells us about. This is a far cry from the comparative
state of US preparedness in the interwar years. And - due to the
Grenada-Panama-Iraq precedents - the US has field-tested formulas for
arranging hostilities with favorable publicity at any time of its
own choosing.
The first step in preparation for actual military engagement with
China would be a demonization campaign, and it would need to be a
globally effective campaign, not just for US consumption. Need I
point out how incredibly easy that campaign would be? Slave labor
camps, all but outright genocide against minorities such as the
Tibetans, killing off infant females, religious suppression,
massacre of peaceful demonstrators, legions of political prisoners,
no semblance of human rights or free press by Western standards,
heartbreaking behavior, perhaps, toward Hong Kong, a dictatorial
regime - the mix may change over time, but China will for quite a
while be a very easy target for modern demonization campaigns.
The immediate war-initiation scenario might not be much different
from that which brought the US into WW II. Sinking a carrier task
force would have the same emotional impact on the US public as did
the attack on Pearl Harbor, and no holds would then be barred the US
military by domestic opinion. We saw how China's recent
belligerency toward Taiwan (one of Bernstein and Munro's seven flash
points) resulted in the dispatch of American fleets which then
flouted their electronic superiority to the chagrin of the Chinese
navy and the embarrassment and frustrated anger of Chinese leaders.
A more assertive China with a more formidable military capability -
and this is where we're most likely heading - would make similar
confrontations both more likely and more dangerous. And for the US
to back down from what it perceived as strategic challenges would be
to yield to that very Chinese hegemony which Foreign Affairs informs
us is categorically unacceptable to "American Interests."
The combat scenario; hi-tech arsenal considered mandatory
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Let us consider the parameters of the hypothetically resulting
military conflict. The US strategy would have certain mandatory
objectives, which one can presume, based on common sense and
precedents, would include:
(1) no nuclear strikes tolerated on US soil
(2) nuclear annihilation of China not desired
(3) tactical nukes in China OK
(4) land war in China out of the question
(5) unconditional Chinese surrender a must
For such a full-scale offensive, encumbered with such objectives, to
be feasible, the US would need to quickly achieve the same total
mastery-of-theater that it obtained in Iraq. The US could achieve
its objectives only if it could suppress all air-defense measures,
prevent China from launching strategic weapons, and have the
unrestricted ability to pound China with cruise missiles and bombs -
nuclear armed in the case of unusually large, hardened, or strategic
targets.
China is a good bit bigger than Iraq, and would be much better
prepared, and so the Desert Storm technology would need to be
radically upscaled and refined. The race to re-invent C4 (hi-tech
warfare) systems, as reported recently by the Economist and others,
seems to be a straightforward strategic imperative for US planners.
Armaments and public opinion are both being systematically prepared,
apparently, for the anticipated conflict. There will be no time to
build a thousand bombers and no dissension will be tolerated - when
the decisive moment for action arises. When the "innocent" US fleet
is blown out of the seas, as it rushes, say, to protect Taiwan, Plan
B (blitzkrieg warfare) must be ready for instant execution - there
will be critical first-strike missions that cannot be allowed to
fail. And once the show starts, the pace will not slacken.
It would have to be planned as a one-campaign war, a full-court
press all the way. The modern warfare model is a blitzkrieg model,
and we saw its field tests in Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. All
weapons systems, including those of the endgame, must be in full
readiness at conflict start. We can therefore expect C4 development
to continue to accelerate over the coming months, and expect at
least one additional test prior to the big event, timed to suit the
requirements of systems evaluation more than any real geopolitical
emergency. Hence the media (and US foreign policy) endeavors to
keep demonization quotients at chronically high levels for Iran,
Iraq, Libya, and North Korea - so that a sizable weapons test can be
arranged quickly and conveniently whenever needed.
After the final war - or, perhaps, after China submits peacefully to
globalist authority out of an unexpected prudence - we will enter the
era which some prematurely claim we have already entered - a post-
national context in which other primary forces will be allowed to
shape the global architecture in new ways, as fades the structuring
force of competitive nationalism. The "other" structuring force,
it should be clear, is megacorp-dominated globalism.
(Megacorp: n. large transnational corporation)
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End part 2 of 3 - "China vs. Globalization"
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